Research Strategies
The basics.
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Research has everything to do with solving
problems, grappling with issues, advancing
knowledge.
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Research has everything to do with solving
problems, grappling with issues, advancing
knowledge.
Research has nothing much to do with
reproducing what you already know.
Why Do Many Research Papers
Miss the Target?
A research paper needs to answer a question
 The only data that’s important is the data
used to answer the question
 Merely summarizing what you have read is a
failed research paper

EXAMPLE:
Instead of investigating the causes of burnout in ministry
(which mainly means culling the causes out of existing
literature and reporting what you found), try this:
What are the best means for a local church pastor to avoid
burnout in ministry?
That is, existing information on the topic becomes a tool to
enable you to provide a solution to a problem. Thus
research moves from an information gathering exercise
(information as goal) to a problem-solving exercise
(information as tool).
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Let’s look at some examples of
questions that should illustrate how
important they are.
What’s happening today in the Open
Theism debate?
Is this a good question for research?

What’s happening today in the
Open Theism debate?
Bad question:
It gives you a topic, but you are merely
tasked with gathering information, and
there are many possible things that
could be happening with this debate.

Let’s try a more focused research
question:
What level of support is there in
Scripture for Open Theism?

Now you have a scope within which to
search – An evaluation of this theological
position as tested by the Bible
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If you think of a research question as
an arrow, there are several types that
don’t work well:
The arrow that does not exist:
No question at all

If you think of a research question as
an arrow, there are several types that
don’t work well:
The Blunt Arrow:
“What is nature of the Open Theism
theology?”

If you think of a research question as an
arrow, there are several types that don’t
work well:
The Multi-pointed Arrow:
“What is Open Theism, and who holds
this position, and where did it come from,
and why do some theologians not like
it?”

If you think of a research question as an
arrow, there are several types that don’t
work well:
The Simply Fuzzy Arrow:
“What do we do with Open Theism?”
(Unclear who “we” are. Can we actually “do”
something with Open Theism, like banning it? Not
clear what the goal of the question is.)

If you think of a research question as an arrow,
there are several types that don’t work well:
The Never-Will-Fly Arrow:
“How has Open Theism affected evangelism
today?”
(Is there actually any effect? How would you measure it?)

If you think of a research question as an
arrow, there are several types that don’t
work well:
The Arrow That’s Already There:
“Is Open Theism controversial among
Evangelicals?”

Always think through your question so that it’s
well focused and shows good promise of
making a contribution:
e.g. Are the problems of urban
homelessness best answered through
government programs or private charitable
institutions?

What evidence is there that Jesus
really rose from the dead?
Why did Martin Luther’s view of
Jewish people grow more negative
as he aged?
These types of questions are focused and give
you good guidance for the type of information
you need.
Searching for Resources
Types of Searches you Can Perform
- Keyword
- Controlled Vocabulary
Keywords

Let’s Start with Keyword Searching
- Computers allow you to search for
words.
- Databases (collections of information
organized for retrieval) are made up of
words.
- Thus keyword searching is a great
method for computer databases.
Here is a database “record”
Here are some of the keyword search options in the
TWU book catalog:

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Title Keyword searches for words in titles and contents
notes.
Author Keyword searches for part of an author’s name
(e.g. Badke) without needing the full name.
Keywords search for words in titles, authors, subjects,
etc. all at once
Subject Keyword searches for part of a subject
heading, even if you don’t know a full subject heading in
the right form. For example, the subject heading for
commentaries on Mark is:
Bible. N.T. Mark—Commentaries. With a Subject
Keyword search, I can just type:
Mark Commentaries.
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Keyword Searching follows specific
rules that need to be understood.
The basis of keyword searching is the
use of “Boolean operators,” the words
OR, AND, and NOT.

The OR Command:
This command works for synonyms or related words.
It tells the computer to find either term. Large number
of results are located
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The AND Command:
This command limits you results only to those records
that have both words in them. The result set is smaller.
Most Internet search engines
automatically create an AND. So do
most library catalog keyword
searches.
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The NOT Command:
This command excludes words that
you don’t want in your results. E.g.
you are searching for Covenant in the
Bible but keep getting results referring
to Covenant Churches where the Bible
is taught. Thus search:
Covenant AND Bible NOT Church
Let’s try a library Title Keyword Search with OR:
Counseling or Psychotherapy
One title uses “Counseling” and one uses “Psychotherapy”
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Now let’s see what AND can do.
The best situation for an AND search is when you want
to narrow down to something quite specific. For
example, if I want to find books about discipleship in the
Gospel of Mark, subject headings may not help, since
they are:
Bible. N.T. Mark
Christian Life
Each term must be searched separately, so finding
records where they overlap is a problem.

A Title Keyword search can do it (Note use of the
truncation symbol $ for disciple, disciples, discipleship,
discipling.)
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Note the appearance of our words in the titles:
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But be careful with Keywords:
- You have to use the right terminology. A computer
cannot discern anything but the actual words you use.
Even wrong spellings will mess up your results.
- You will likely need several alternate searches to
cover all possible words related to a subject (This is
where a controlled vocabulary search can be
beneficial, because it doesn’t depend on terminology in
a title, etc.).
- With AND searches, be careful not to use too many
words. Every word you add to your search means you
will have fewer results.
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Some advanced keyword searches:
- On the Internet, you can search for phrases by
putting them in quotation marks,
e.g. “apple trees”
- In library catalogs and other indexes, you may need
to use brackets: (apple trees)
If you don’t group phrases the computer could bring
up a result like this:
Fruit Trees: Where Oranges and Apples Come From.
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Some more advanced keyword
searches:
When searches contain both ANDs and ORs, it’s best
to group them so the computer knows what to do:
(Counseling OR Psychotherapy) AND Phobias
You are telling the computer that you don’t care if
your results contain the word counseling or the word
psychotherapy, but all results must contain the word
phobias.
Controlled Vocabularies
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Controlled Vocabulary Searching.
What is it?
It’s a method of identifying information
by pre-established subject headings.
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Where do controlled vocabularies
come from?
They are produced by library
catalogers who predetermine what
subject headings to use and then
apply them.
The most significant producer of a
controlled vocabulary is The Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
Here’s the easiest way to identify and use subject
headings:
First do a keyword title search in the catalogue:
You can do the same thing with many journal
indexes:
Journals
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Journals are part of a class of
resources generally known as
“periodicals.”
Periodicals are magazines, journals,
etc. that are published at regular
intervals under the same title.
E.g. Time Magazine
The Province Newspaper
Journal of Biblical Literature
Journals represent a particular problem –
since they continue being published, they
are hard to catalog.
What most people want is a way to search
by subject or keyword for specific articles
in journals.
Journal Databases
Enter the Journal Database.
A journal database provides subject or keyword
searching to articles in a variety of periodicals.
Often these databases are related to a subject
area – theology, psychology – but some cover all
subjects.
A strong feature in a number of journal
databases is the presence of electronic “full
text,” meaning that the whole text of the article is
available through the database.
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Journal Databases
Full text format is usually either html or PDF,
most often the latter.
HTML is usually just the text of the article,
though sometimes any graphics are
included.
PDF looks like a photocopy of the original
article.
Journal Citations
This is what a journal citation may look like:
Database Access
Just a note about commercial journal databases:
Most of these databases are available to academic libraries
only by expensive subscriptions. These libraries must protect
access to their databases, limiting use only to their own
students, or face lawsuits.
Thus most journal databases are only available by password.
Alternative Databases
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There are very few journal databases
available on the Internet for free.
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Directory of Open Access Journals indexes
journals that are available on the Net for free (less
than 5000 of them currently). You can search by
journal name or by topic
http://www.doaj.org/
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A resource for both articles and books is Google
Scholar. Note that in many cases the articles that
are cited do not come with full text, though you
may be able to get an abstract.
http://scholar.google.com/. Log into GS through our
library home page, and you will get connections to
our library journal holdings.
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Here is a screen of the Journal Index EBSCO ATLA
Religion Database, with basic search for relevant
articles:
Now you have only 94 results, but they are much more focused on
your topic:
Sometimes there is no electronic full text, but the library has
it in another format. Click on the “Check for availability” link
in the citation for the article
In this case, the library has electronic text in two places:
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If you want a direct search to see if our library has a
particular journal, search Journal Titles from the library
home page. (www.twu.ca/library)
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TWU’s journal list looks like this: